I
had first met Deborah Polaski in London several years
ago when she was singing Brünnhilde at Covent Garden in
the Richard Jones directed Ring cycle. She was
born in Wisconsin in the USA’s mid-west, her father was
a Protestant minister and Ms Polaski began by singing
in church all the time ‘whether I wanted to or not’. Thoughts
of a singing career only began during her first college
years when she attended a very small church college with
‘a wonderful head of music who had a way of conveying
his excitement of performance to his students. I was brought
up in a community where there was no access to opera but
great opera stars like Beverley Stills and Norman Triegle
would perform at the local music hall and I sold programmes
one summer in order to see them. It was fantastic to experience
just those happenings on stage; the telling of a story’.
Ms Polaski came to Europe very early in her studies and
on a summer programme in Graz ‘I had the wonderful experience
of meeting the great George London and he was an integral
part of beginning my career for me. Unfortunately he had
his massive stroke within the same year but he was a real
inspiration.’ This lead to her first contract in Gelsenkirchen
(a small town north of Cologne) where ‘they needed someone
to sing Senta and Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera)’.
The rest, as the phrase goes, is history and she has developed
into one of the most important dramatic sopranos of her
generation concentrating particularly on the great roles
by Wagner and Strauss.

At
the time we last met there had been the furore about the
scene in Götterdämmerung
where Ms Polaski entered with a paper bag over her head
and this is reproduced in John Snelson’s recent book about
the history of the Ring at Covent Garden. She had thought
that this expressed Brünnhilde’s humiliation better than
anything she had done at the time. I asked Ms Polaski
whether in hindsight she had really enjoyed working with
Richard Jones.

I
regret never having had the chance to work with him again
as he is such a genius even if some of the ideas were
a little surreal for what the public expected to see.
He really got to the core of the emotion. It was such
a good combination of people with a cast with an incredible
amount of chemistry, Siegfried Jerusalem and John Tomlinson,
and those kinds of pieces live from that. You cannot possibly
have the same chemistry with everybody, you cannot expect
that but when it is there it is fantastic.

I
asked her who had been the director who challenged her
the most.

Easily
I would say that is Harry Kupfer. Over the years we did
so many things together including Frau ohne Schatten,
Elektra, the Ring, Parsifal and
Lohengrin. That is an awful lot of rehearsal time
and that is really when you get to know somebody’s approach,
somebody’s moods, somebody’s craft, I just love the very
explicit and exquisite way of working with text and not
taking anything for granted as far as the words are concerned
– he used to pull things out of pieces and I’d think,
“I’ve never thought of that before”. He stopped the sentence
before the full stop and made you interpret only that
part of the phrase of the sentence. Not knowing what the
end of the sentence is this opens up a world of possibilities
– for example when Waltraute sings ‘Seit er von dir geschieden’,
who is ‘er’? Brünnhilde according to Harry at this point,
is only concerned with Siegfried and is not thinking about
Wotan. ‘Seit Siegfried von dir geschieden’, is what it
means to Brünnhilde in the context of the scene. However,
what Waltraute is referring to is Wotan. It’s a fantastic
way of working.

I
had enjoyed the Kupfer Rings
I had seen her in Bayreuth
and Berlin but found familiar ideas in both.

There
were certain similarities – if you have a good idea, why
not use it twice? With a piece of this magnitude, it is
very difficult to come up with a second new concept within
less than 10 years. The Bayreuth Ring was not that
far from the Berlin Ring. We started with the Berlin
Ring in 1994 and the Ring in Bayreuth was
finished in 1992 – that is not a lot of time especially
for a person like Harry Kupfer, who is constantly trying
to develop new concepts and is working on so many others
pieces at the same time.

We
were meeting backstage at the Vienna State Opera before
a performance of Parsifal
the production Ms Polaski will appear in next season.
She was going to see it that evening to see the set and
I wondered whether there were sufficient rehearsal for
all the operas in Vienna
and generally how much she enjoyed singing there.

Rehearsals
exist for any new production – 5 or 6 weeks just like
any place else in Europe. The biggest problem with a revival
is if you have not worked with a colleague before. The
chemistry within the house is something you earn and you
work for. This develops over the years, and it’s wonderful
because then it is like coming to a place where you can
enjoy being – I love singing here. It is so important
to cultivate a good working atmosphere.

Ms
Polaski had sung at the 50th anniversary gala to celebrate
the reopening of the Vienna State Opera in 1955 I wondered
how that had been for her.

That
was quite an experience; the atmosphere in the house was
at least 10 times that of any première atmosphere I’ve
ever experienced. You are taking part in a historical
event, making history, seeing and recognizing singers
of former generations, seated there on stage, taking part
in an inactive way. It’s a humbling experience. I sang
the Act 3 duet and the final quartet from Frau ohne
Schatten and the finale from Fidelio, which
I hadn’t sung for some time.

I
was in Vienna to see Ms Polaski as Isolde. I asked whether
this role had changed for her over the years she has been
singing it.

My
first Isolde was in 1984 in Freiburg. Some roles get easier
with time but Isolde does not necessarily get much easier.
I am so reliant on the tempi being exactly what I need,
but in other roles in my Fach, I can accommodate
a little bit more flexibility. For Isolde however, it
is particularly important to me that the conductor knows
what I need and when. You either need to know someone
musically extremely well, like when I jumped in for the
second performance at the Festtage 2006 in Berlin. They
asked me if I would sing, and I said yes, mainly because
it was Daniel Barenboim conducting. I had one staging
rehearsal of about 2 hours, and I did not see Maestro
Barenboim before the evening. We’ve done the piece together
before and it was like putting on a glove. Nowadays Isolde
is often cast with a lighter voice, perhaps to go along
with the lighter tenors that are available… I’m not sure!?
However, my tempi sometimes need to be a little broader
since I am a dramatic soprano. You always have to be extremely
careful how you get through the lyrical parts of the piece.
If they are too fast you can sing lyrically but fast does
not necessarily mean lyrically and lyrically does not
mean fast. A piece like Götterdämmerung, for example,
is a totally different story, and so is Elektra,
which I have sung more than 150 times by now. I still
have certain places where I need my own tempi but it is
all worked into the muscles of the body. You hear a certain
phrase and the muscles react spontaneously because that
is the result of having sung the piece for so long.

Also
I asked what Ms Polaski’s thoughts were on the current
Vienna Tristan
und Isolde production I was to see.

I
love my dress. It has this huge long black train with
a dark green bodice! The production is easy to look at.
There is not a lot of movement. I like having something
to do, to express myself and emotions with my body as
well as with my voice. I like action and reaction, but
I think this production allows in its simplicity the audience
to really concentrate on the context and the content without
being distracted.

The
Vienna State Opera is beginning a new Ring
Cycle soon and I was interested to know how she had
enjoyed appearing the last one.

We
buried the Ring this January – I enjoyed singing
it in Vienna for different reasons. The production lost
a lot since its première, but since I did not see it early
on and had only access to video taped rehearsals/performances,
I don’t really know how it was in the beginning. By the
time I was cast to sing it, it was necessary to bring
in my experience to fill some of the gaps that had occurred
over time. It allowed you a lot of freedom because you
weren’t straight-jacketed to do things you didn’t feel
comfortable with. There were, however, certain things
as far as the set was concerned that made it important
to be careful for safety reasons. If you are like I am,
someone who enjoys working with the text and delivering
an emotion through text-painting, it was actually ideal.
Then again you need that certain chemistry with your partners
on stage…

What
is it like to come back and revisit familiar roles?

I
try to engage myself in the text to the extent that I
can always find something new. With any masterpiece that
you’ve sung so often and are intimately connected to,
you can still find new interpretational things if you
look long enough. That’s the beauty of singing these
pieces, because you’re never finished – the work is never
done. This sounds terribly corny – but it is a life experience
and it is a road you go that never stops until you stop.

In
many of her recitals Ms Polaski includes Mahler songs.
I wanted to know her thoughts are about Mahler and his
music.

I
love the way Mahler writes for the voice – it’s a way
of writing that because of his orchestrations gives so
many colours and allows a singer also to add their palette
of colours to that and it is extremely expressive music,
extremely romantic in a certain way. I love Mahler and
I wish he had written operas. He wrote in a way that speaks
directly to me. When I sing the songs it is extremely
good for my voice. The way he uses the language and the
colours within the instrumentation it is a challenge for
the singer to be able to somehow cope with it all of it
and add something so that the picture is even more complete.

Since
she spent so much time in two such great cities I was
interested to know how Ms Polaski compared Berlin and
Vienna.

I
live in Berlin, where I often go for doggy-walks. In Vienna
– the centre of the city has so much culture but very
little green – you can go to the Hofgarten and go to the
Stadtpark but there are not many places where you can
take dogs. You only realize the worth of green when you
don’t find it all around, and I need it. In Berlin, within
the city limits, there are many forests and lakes. The
feeling within the city here is totally different to Berlin
and you cannot compare the two but I love coming to Vienna
and nearly every month this season I am here. Culturally,
they both have so much to offer: opera houses – plural!
- philharmonic orchestras of world renown, drama theatres
of international importance, so many museums that one
needs almost a lifetime to absorb what is offered for
visual as well, and then there is the whole culinary world
which we could also discuss!

With
so much experience behind her I was curious if she had
time for coaching and teaching the next generation of
singers.

I’m
doing both now and really love it. The learning process
and the experience process do not stop with me, and I
enjoy being able to pass it on. So many times it is a
matter of a young singer knowing how much of a risk they
can take in making decisions and making their opinions
known, and what risk they should not take. It is good
to discuss these things with a colleague with experience.
Questions and possible answers in conjunction to how do
you feel about this etc. etc. If it is a matter of should
I sing this role already? So much depends on who is conducting;
what size of a house it is, and who your colleagues are.
Do your partners fit vocally size-wise with you; also
so much depends on the acoustics of the house. What you
are singing the night before, what you are singing after?
Little things that need to become part of your approach
to every question about a new job. It needs to be all
part of the list you tick off – and I enjoy seeing young
singers finding their answers through our discussions.

I
wondered whether younger singers now have greater pressures
on them than when she began her career.

The
pressure is undoubtedly greater when young singers get
to the top too early. So many times you get young singers
at the top who don’t have any experience to back up decisions
necessary at the top. Of course, this often results in
the inability to react in a ‘wise, experienced’ way. Decisions
made, that are not based on experience, can be detrimental,
vocally and even sometimes emotionally, if they make the
steps to the top too quickly. That is only pressure that
you, as an individual, have allowed to come into your
life. It is still possible to say no. The days when I
was ‘growing up’ in the system you had a full time contract
in a house and tried out things in that house and did
a little bit of guesting. You then moved onto a bigger
house, tried out more things there and also did a little
bit more guesting. That is not the popular way to think
anymore. Don’t take the time to build a sound basis
but go straight to the top, but with what kind of experience?
Many times you get young kids at the top who don’t have
any background to base the situation on and, of course,
they don’t now how to react. The best advice an older
singer can give a younger singer is if it is worth it
everything will come, so take your time.

Finally
what was in Ms Polaski’s diary that she was most looking
forward to?

Well,
singing in concert Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue for
the first time in May 2006, the tour to Japan with the
New York Met in June 2006, and then I will sing Cassandra
and Didon in Les Troyens in October in Paris. I
will be returning to Vienna next season to sing Isolde,
Kundry and Elektra and I am looking forward to that as
well as to a new production of Elektra in Barcelona
in 2008!